Australian PM praises Australian Olympians
25/8/2008 17:11
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today praised Australia's Olympians
for their outstanding performance and promised to continue sports funding in the
lead-up to the London 2012 Games.
"Australia had done an outstanding job
finishing in sixth place on the medal table," Rudd told ABC Radio.
Australia
finished behind China, the United States, Russia, Great Britain and Germany,
with 14 gold medals, 15 silver and 17 bronze. The total medal number has
surpassed Germany.
"The point is we are a highly competitive nation when it
comes to international sport," Rudd said.
"They have done fantastically well
as a team and what I've said prior to the Olympics starting, and in Beijing
before the Games actually began, is that the Government will be long-term
funding partners with the AOC (Australian Olympic Committee), with the
Australian Institute of Sport in the lead-up to the London Games and to the
Games beyond that as well."
Talking about the future sports, Rudd said he
believed there were two challenges for Australia for the period ahead in the
lead- up to the Londun Games.
"One is to widen the community participation in
sport and that is one of the thrusts which Kate Ellis, the sports minister, is
working on and has a lot of work underway at the moment. And secondly,of course,
that feeds into, of course, your elite level sports as well."
"We compete
well at Olympics, we believe in getting behind our athletes, we do the right
thing but at the same time we want to broaden out the community participation in
sport as well," the prime minister added.
"So, if you ask what's the
government's overall approach to sports funding, it's to ensure that both these
areas of sporting activity, both from the general community and at the elite
level, are properly supported in the long-term future," he said.
Xinhua
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